This module is designed to introduce students to contemporary Korean popular culture, and more specifically the 21st century South Korean cultural phenomenon called Hallyu (Korean Wave) – its  promises and limitations as well as its popularity and backlash against it. By taking an interdisciplinary approach to the topic, students will study food, film, television, music, fashion and sports and ask how they participate in the transnational production, distribution and circulation of culture, identity, modernity, tradition, ideology and politics both regionally and globally. One of the major questions this module will explore is the curious ways in which these popular media continuously re-stage and re-define Korea’s historical past in order to comment on its present. This module also targets to equip students with analytical tools to critically think about popular culture as well as understand theories of cultural globalization.